Rose Valley abattoir a step closer

At Tuesday evening’s meeting, the majority of Kiama councillors voted to proceed with the amendment to Kiama’s Local Environmental Plan to allow an abattoir at Rose Valley. 

In 2013, Kiama council received a DA for the construction of an abattoir on a Rose Valley Road property. 

Council determined the use was prohibited and unable to be approved under Kiama’s LEP. 

A subsequent planning proposal lodged included an abattoir and a 60-seat, licensed revolving restaurant. 

The applicants are Gerhard and Maria Baden of Schottlanders Wagyu. 

Last year, Kiama councillors resolved to endorse the planning proposal for “additional permitted” uses at the property to proceed to the Department of Planning and Environment for a Gateway Determination. 

The site is zoned as RU2 – Rural Landscape and E2 – Environmental Conservation.

At the time it was noted that the LEP did not permit an abattoir/livestock processing industry in any land use zone, and also that a restaurant/café was not permitted in a rural zone.

This planning proposal didn’t propose changes to the current zone, but sought additional uses on the nominated site only.

Currently, the farm’s cattle are raised on-site, sent to an abattoir for slaughtering, with the carcass returned for processing and packaging in the existing on-site meat processing plant. 

Mrs Baden recently said the current distance associated with transporting their animals wasn’t viable from a business perspective, and that “the (proposed) facility is solely for our own animals”. 

The proposal went to the Department for the Gateway Determination, which they permitted in August. 

This enables public consultation and Kiama council to make the final determination. The applicants would be required to submit a development application to council. 

Council placed the proposal on public exhibition and received 159 submissions, 82 of which supported the proposal.

The Save Rose Valley group fears the environmental threat of an abattoir. The group includes Ken and Debra Sandy, whose property neighbours the Badens. 

“If this planning proposal is allowed, we are alarmed this would set a serious and dangerous legal precedent that could allow more abattoirs or any other totally unsuitable development (throughout the municipality),” Mrs Sandy told Fairfax Media in September. 

“Data received confirms the land adjacent to the proposed site of this prohibited facility is a floodplain. The chemicals used to treat the effluent will flood the paddock, the land and waterways feeding into Werri Lagoon.”

The applicants have claimed an on-site sewage treatment facility and effluent re-use scheme prepared will prevent smells or pollution of Werri Lagoon’s catchment.

Mr Sandy disputes the applicants’ claims that the number of animals being processed at the site would be limited to two per week. 

Following the meeting, Mrs Sandy said they were reviewing their options, citing a “lack of procedural fairness and transparency”.

She claimed the community and other bodies had not been properly notified of changes to the effluent disposal area aspect of the proposal. 

Mrs Baden said they planned to lodge a DA for the “micro-abattoir” as soon as possible.

“That is the essential first step… It’s about the welfare of our animals,” she said. 

Kiama Mayor Mark Honey said the result “just shows that Kiama council is prepared to look at innovative agricultural pursuits to try and keep rural industry alive and vibrant in the area”. 

“It doesn’t set a precedent in that every farmer can come along now and ask for a land change so they can put a micro-abattoir on the place,” he said. 

“Every alternative change of land use will have to go through exactly the same process… It is purely and simply looking at one site on its merits.”